5 metrics that matter while measuring content marketing ROI

Most marketers struggle with accurately measuring the performance of their content marketing initiatives.

Not knowing which content performance metrics to track, is one of the key reasons for this.

So, which content performance metrics should you track?

According to a study, the most crucial metrics for marketers are organic traffic, leads, sessions, and conversion rates.

content performance metrics to track
Image via Semrush

Want to learn whether your content marketing tactics are working or not?

Use the content performance metrics listed in this post to determine the success or failure of your content marketing campaigns.

But first, let’s discuss why these content performance metrics are important and why you need to pay attention to them.

Why focus on content performance metrics when tracking ROI

Calculating the return on investment (ROI) from content marketing is important to assess whether your efforts are delivering tangible results or not.

The insights you will gain by analyzing your performance will help improve your content planning, creation, optimization, and promotion. Content performance metrics, therefore, are important to identify areas for improvement and fuel your future content strategy.

However, you need to track the right content performance metrics to accurately measure your campaign ROI.

Wondering which content performance metrics matter when tracking ROI?

Find out in the next section.

5 of the most crucial content performance metrics to track ROI

Here are five important content performance metrics that you should definitely track for all your content marketing campaigns.

1. Web traffic

Web traffic is one of the essential content performance metrics that every marketer should track. More traffic means more leads and conversions and, therefore, is important while measuring ROI.

Web traffic is a measure of how good your content is at driving people to your site to check out your content, products, and services.

But, how do you track this content performance metric?

Head to your Google Analytics dashboard, then click on behavior > site content > landing pages. This will give you a report of your top-performing landing pages that drive the most web traffic.

That’s not all.

Other traffic numbers to track include:

  • Source of traffic
  • Overall web traffic
  • Views per page
  • Unique sessions
  • Average time per page
  • Referral traffic

You can find all of these metrics in your Google Analytics dashboard or any other web analytics tool that you use.

With this information, you can identify the sources from which you get the most traffic and concentrate on these sources for future content promotion.

2. Lead quality

What actions do people take once they get to your site?

As one of the crucial content performance metrics, lead quality tells you whether you attract the right people to your site or are simply attracting irrelevant leads.

Ideally, those who visit your site should check out other resources, visit different pages, and take other desired actions.

If this happens, then it means your online lead generation strategies work and that you get quality visitors who may turn into potential customers.

However, if most of the people visiting your site bounce off or fail to convert, then it means that your content marketing efforts attract low-quality leads. It could also mean that those you attract aren’t looking for your products, and you need to change your strategy.

How?

Research your ideal audiences’ needs, their pain points, and create content that addresses those. When you create relevant and targeted content, you will automatically start generating better-quality leads. You should also use the best lead generation software out there to make sure nothing escapes the funnel.

3. Engagement

Does your content keep people on your website for long?

To find this out, track your engagement metrics.

It’s one of the most important content performance metrics that tell you whether people who land on your site interact with your content or bounce off.

If they land on one of your blog posts and leave immediately, or fail to read to the end, then you have a major problem.

On the other hand, if they read till the end, click on internal links to check out more information, or subscribe to your newsletter, you have engaging content.

How can you track engagement?

Leverage Google Analytics or any other web analytics platform to find metrics like:

  • Bounce rate
  • Sessions
  • Average session duration
  • Pages per session
  • Number of sessions per user
  • Page depth
  • Click-through rates
  • Inbound links

Additionally, leverage social media analytic tools to track your engagement on the platforms you use. Check for comments, shares, video views, etc. Using a single social media management tool like RecurPost can help you track your end-to-end social media strategy.

Remember, people will spend more time reading, viewing, and sharing your content if what you offer provides value.

It’s, therefore, important to rethink your efforts and only work with content strategies that drive growth. They should help you attract and increase interactions with your content, drive quality leads, and boost conversions.

4. Conversions

One of the easiest content performance metrics to track is sales.

An increase in sales, after you launch a content marketing campaign, is a clear indicator that you’re successfully converting leads into customers with better relationships.

However, an increase in sales is not the only measure of conversion.

Some of the other conversion metrics that you should track are:

  • Newsletter subscriptions
  • Number of registrations from web forms
  • Trial subscriptions (for SaaS companies)
  • Click-through rates

While increasing sales is the most important objective, there are different types of conversions that your content can drive. So, track all of these content performance metrics to make sure that you accurately measure ROI.

5. SEO metrics

These are important content performance metrics as these track your content’s ability to rank your pages on the first page of search results.

Ideally, your website content should be optimized for SEO and your web pages and blog posts should rank for their respective target keywords.

You will need a good SEO tool like Semrush or Moz to measure your content’s performance on SEO metrics.

Some of the things that you can track are:

  • Rankings for target keywords
  • Number and quality of backlinks
  • Number of content pieces ranking in top 3 or top 10 results in Google
  • Top-performing pages
  • Domain authority

The better your content performs across these areas the better it is for SEO.

For domain authority, you can leverage Moz’s Free Domain SEO Analysis Tool.

leverage Moz’s Free Domain SEO Analysis Tool
Image via Moz

Enter your URL, and you get results showing your domain authority, the number of ranking keywords, your top pages by links, top linking domains, etc.

As for inbound links, track with backlink analysis tools like Moz, Semrush, Ahrefs, etc.

Ready to track the right content performance metrics?

By tracking the right combination of content performance metrics, you can find out if the efforts and resources you spent produced the desired results.

What’s more?

These content performance metrics can help you track the effectiveness of your content and whether it generates a high ROI.

Do you have any further questions on identifying and measuring content performance metrics? Comment below and we will get back to you.

Gaurav Sharma
Gaurav Sharmahttps://attrock.com/blog/
Gaurav Sharma is the founder and CEO of Attrock, a results-driven digital marketing company, and a Google Analytics and Google Ads certified professional. He has scaled an agency from 5-figure to 7-figure income in just two years. He has increased leads by 10X, conversion rate by 2.8X, and traffic to 300K per month using content marketing, SEO, influencer marketing, landing page optimization, sales funnel, and LinkedIn. He contributes to reputable publications like HubSpot, Adweek, Business 2 Community, HuffPost, TechCrunch, and many more. He leverages his experience to help SaaS businesses, influencers, local businesses, and ecommerce brands grow their traffic, leads, sales, and authority.
Share this

PEOPLE ARE READING NOW